Efficiently Debugging TYPO3

This page describes how efficiently debugging TYPO3. If you need a PHP editor / IDE, please refer to Comparison of PHP Editors for TYPO3 development.

Draft

Change the {{draft}} marker to {{review}} when you need a reviewer for text and TypoScript. info

XDebug

Installing and Configuring

Assumption: You run XAMPP with PHP 5.2.2 in C:\xampp

64 bit Notice: XDebug has problems on 64bit systems. Version working well on 64bit Win7 with php 5.2.2 is [XDebug 2.0.0].

For this setup, download the linked .dll file and place it in C:\xampp\php\ext

Open your php.ini file in C:\xampp\php\php.ini (Make sure this is the actually used file, older versions of XAMPP used c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini) At the very bottom of that file, comment everything in the Zend section so it is not used anymore. Enter this information in the XDebug section

[XDebug]
zend_extension_ts="C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug-2.0.0-5.2.2.dll"
xdebug.remote_enable=true
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.show_local_vars = 1

and in case you want to use wincachegrind for profiling (warning this is slow and generates huge amounts of data):

xdebug.profiler_enable=1
xdebug.profiler_output_dir="C:\xampp\tmp"

(Personally I prefer XHProf for profiling but it does not come in a windows version right now.)

Restart your Apache server, visit a page with phpinfo() and check if there is a section on XDebug. If there isn't check your filenames and locations and if you edit the correct php.ini file.

Configure Eclipse Galileo PDT for Xdebug

• Click Run -> Debug Configurations
• Select "PHP Web Page" and click the icon for "New launch configuration"
• In the "Server" tab, select Server Debugger "XDebug"
• for the file, browse to your Typo3 index.php
• Leave URL on auto generate and choose break at first line as you like it.
• Click debug and you are running a debugger.

Regarding the correct paths: Assuming you have your Eclipse Workspace in c:\web and a typo3 project named www in C:\web\www with your Apache document root in your workspace directory c:\web. (This means you can get to your Typo3 website on http://localhost/www)... You will have to choose the following as debug configuration:

• File: /www/index.php
• Leave URL to auto generate which will use http://localhost/ in the left part and /www/index.php in the right one.

Some notes:

• You can choose a different default browser (e.g. Firefox) by pressing "Window -> Web Browser"
• You can set Breakpoints by double-clicking in the left border of the editor window (where TODO or FIXME marks are shown)
• Sometimes, the debug session does not stop any more, then you simply have to end the web launch and start it again.
• When debugging Cron Scripts, you can select the debug configuration "PHP Script" using the executable at c:\xampp\php\php.exe

Configure NetBeans 6.8 for debugging

• Install xdebug as explained before.
• In the project listing of NetBeans, right-click on the project which you want to debug, and open "Properties". This opens the Project Properties dialog.
• Then, modify the "Run Configuration" as follows:
  • Run as: Local web site
  • Project URL: [Base URL to your TYPO3 instance], like http://localhost/typo3v4/
  • Index File: (leave blank)
  • Arguments: (leave blank)
• Now click on "Advanced", and set the "Debug URL" to "Ask Every Time".
• That's basically it :-)

To use debugging, do the following:

• Set a breakpoint inside the project you just set up, and click debug in the main toolbar.
• Now, a popup opens where you can enter the URL of the website which should be called. Enter the URL which triggers the desired functionality.
• Your browser opens and starts loading. Now, go back to NetBeans, and see that it is waiting on a break point for your attention :-)
• Happy debugging!

Further Reading

• Extension Development, Debugging

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